


Shaky Hands

by Wispie



Series: All The Things We Know And Feel [1]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: (and the like), Almost smut, But I Cut That Part Out, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Mutual Pining, Pining, all about control, basically everything except for smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wispie/pseuds/Wispie
Summary: Charles has developed an unfortunate habit whenever Erik's presence proves especially overwhelming.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: All The Things We Know And Feel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981823
Comments: 3
Kudos: 89





	Shaky Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt list: https://whumptober2020.tumblr.com/post/187356400823/october-approaches-and-so-does-whumptober-2019 
> 
> No. 1: Shaky Hands

It’s safe to say that Charles noticed Erik immediately. The moment they met exemplified this perfectly, when Charles’ eye was caught by the glinting of searchlights off some slight disturbances in the dark water’s surface. Charles did a double-take. It was a man. A rapidly sinking, probably mentally unstable man who was seemingly being dragged behind the submarine running away beneath them. Charles couldn’t care less about the submarine or the fact that Shaw was getting away. He ran across the ship, tearing off his coat and diving in with barely a moment’s hesitation. The water that engulfed him, cold and bone-chilling, was certainly shocking, but adrenaline pumped through his system and he willed himself to move. He wrapped his arms around Erik’s chest and emerged a few moments later with the man who would eventually grow to be his everything. But he didn’t know that, then. 

Soon he was noticing the little things. The way Erik’s penchant for turtlenecks only afforded him delicately small glimpses of his neck, soft and vulnerable. Late at night, during a chess game, Charles saw the ever-present furrow in Erik’s brow dissipate and be replaced by a silent, powerful contentedness. It was the first time he had seen Erik look anything but mildly annoyed and it took Charles entirely by surprise when he found his heart thundering in his chest. The veins in Erik’s hands that swelled whenever he strained his powers— oh, how Charles wanted to run his fingertips across those hands. Each passing brush, each accidental graze of Erik’s skin sent electric sparks directly to his heart and plunged his thoughts to hidden depths that can only be described as positively filthy. 

Charles quickly developed an unfortunate and involuntary response whenever Erik’s intoxicating existence proved especially overwhelming. Shaky hands. He loathed to imagine anyone noticing, being able to see past his carefully crafted facade of calm, cool, and collected. He had worked countless hours to gain impeccable control over himself and his powers and was astounded to discover that this man was able to strip all that away with something as small as a sideways glance and a sly grin. He’d taken to shoving his hands in his pockets, which had the added benefit of making him appear nonchalant instead of flushed and flustered. 

It had happened again. Charles had been staring at the chessboard for nearly five full minutes now, quivering hands tucked safely into his coat pockets. He’d known exactly what his next move was going to be before Erik even took his turn, but at the last moment he’d flicked his eyes up at him and murmured, 

“Looks like you have me backed into a corner, Charles.” His lips curled into a slight smile and he practically purred as he spoke. Charles struggled to maintain composure. He first decided to just wait it out, hoping that it would go away, but that strategy proved to be disastrously ill-advised. It didn’t usually take him any longer than thirty seconds to make his move, so Erik grew immediately suspicious. He fixed his gaze on Charles, only growing in intensity with each passing minute. Charles was keenly aware that this only made the shaking worse and he was only digging himself further and further into this hole, but it was too late now. 

“You can’t possibly still be thinking about your next turn. You checkmate in three moves,” Erik commented. 

“I know,” he responded immediately, trying desperately to keep that treacherous waver out of his voice. 

“Then why haven’t you? 

“I have my reasons.” He couldn’t be bothered to come up with a good excuse. 

“You’re only making me more curious.” Erik shook his head teasingly, grin growing wider. His serious interest was piqued when Charles let out a low, shaky breath. He didn’t speak, instead slowly pulling an unsteady hand from his pocket. Wincing and shifting his gaze away, he curled it into a tight fist. But it was too late, Erik had already noticed. Part of him suspected, correctly, what this lapse of control meant, part of him understood the shame Charles must be feeling, and the rest of him didn’t care. He had a sudden urge to reach out and grab that hand, to unfurl it and intertwine it in his own, to then pull Charles into a deep and passionate kiss, to make him forget any ounce of embarrassment, to drown it out in a sea of lust and desire. He forced himself to stay maddeningly still. The two men, thusly strained and restrained, simply stared at each other amidst a fog of pregnant silence. 

Charles was the one to break it. 

“I find it immensely difficult to control myself whenever you look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Erik asked innocently, accompanied by an almost comical raising of his eyebrows. Charles would have laughed if the majority of his brain’s processing power hadn’t been otherwise engaged. 

“You know.” He did. Erik dropped the naiveté and his gaze grew sultry. “You know,” Charles repeated, deeper. Erik reached out a leg and shoved away the table between them. Several chess pieces toppled over and a few fell to the floor. 

“ _Erik,_ ” Charles gasped in surprise. 

“You would’ve won anyways,” he reasoned with a slight shrug of the shoulders. Then he tugged Charles’ chair towards him using the metal in its feet. Erik watched with delight as his eyes flared and his lips parted. Charles felt a burning sensation in his gut as Erik’s hand reached out steadily towards his own trembling fist. When they finally touched, Charles had to pull out his other hand and clutch his chair arm to steady himself. Erik’s fingers worked magic as they unraveled his shaky digits. He chuckled. 

“Do I really do this to you?” 

Charles nodded. “Every time you touch me, or do anything bordering on irresistible, or… maybe it’s just you.” Erik blinked twice, in rapid succession. He was struggling to maintain his own veneer, an effort only made more difficult by the way Charles’ voice had just lowered to a suggestive whisper. He opened his mouth to reply with some clever witticism but Charles suddenly stood up and lunged forward into a rough and needy kiss. Erik was taken aback slightly by the forwardness, but that was soon forgotten when he discovered that Charles’ lips were exactly as soft as he’d imagined and far more demanding. He placed a hand on Charles’ side, just above his hip, and felt a hot gasp against his lips. 

Charles found that though his thoughts had taken a distinctively x-rated turn and he was greatly struggling to keep his blood pressure down to avoid total humiliation, his hands had somehow stopped shaking. So he untangled their fingers and placed one brave hand on Erik’s thigh. The sharp intake of breath he received in response was incredibly thrilling. He caught Erik’s gaze, raw, intense, steady, and moved further up his leg. Erik tensed beneath his touch and he felt the hand on his side tighten its grip. 

“Erik-” Charles murmured into his lips with a smile. 

But Erik was done with the teasing. He stood suddenly and used Charles’ momentary imbalance to place a heavy hand on the small of his back and pull him as close as possible. The kiss resumed immediately, hot, dirty, needy, full of longing and capitulation. Both of Charles’ hands had moved to clutch at Erik’s shoulders but as he relaxed, they began to run through Erik’s hair, pulling and grasping every now and again when things became especially heady. It was thrilling, intoxicating, and an almost entirely new sensation that Erik would eventually come to recognize as love. He slid his hand lower and lower down Charles’ back until his fingertips played delicately at the boundary between hip and ass. He could feel Charles’ knees buckle slightly as he melted further into him. His mind went giddy with his newfound power over Charles’ control, an ability he intended to fully explore over the course of the next few hours. 

Charles felt his head grow light and his breathing between every open-mouthed kiss became heavy. He didn’t dare reach into Erik’s mind, he knew he’d probably faint at what he’d find, but he also didn’t want to risk stopping whatever this was. Nevertheless, he could tell that Erik was about to grow mad with power, which wasn’t at all helped by how out of control Charles felt around him. He tried to regain some semblance of dominance by sliding a hand down Erik’s chest, slowing to an agonizing pace as he got further down. 

Erik couldn’t stand it anymore, the way Charles’ fingertips trailed across his stomach. He imagined how they would feel gliding down the rest of their suggested path… 

With a deep groan, he used one hand to tear Charles’ touch off of him and dug the other into his side. Charles hummed. _He hummed_ , high and whiny, bordering on a moan. That was it, Erik began walking backwards, pulling them into Charles’ adjoining bedroom. There was little ambiguity to what this action meant, but Erik met no resistance, felt no hesitation in Charles’ desperate and needy movements. 

They stumbled into bed together, two minds operating as one, conveying absolute certainty and readiness in a way that their clumsy hands never could. Charles found himself falling on top of Erik, but a strong arm quickly wrapped around him and flipped him roughly onto his back, eliciting from him an unambiguously dirty sound. Erik paused and smiled down at Charles.

“Was that a moan?” 

“Don’t make me repeat myself.” Charles was definitely enjoying becoming unraveled, but he would never let Erik know that. They’d never again be able to exist together in a public space if he did. 

Erik said nothing. Instead, he reached down to place a hand on Charles’ groin. Firmly. This time it was clear, quiet, and sounded to Erik’s like the sigh of an angel. 

“Fuck, Erik-”

He undid Charles’ belt, button, and zipper with one hand, quite possibly aided by his powers. 

“What’re you-”

Erik returned his hand to its previous position, just as firm, but moving this time and with only one unbearably thin layer of fabric between them. The _keen_ that sounded through Charles’ open lips was the best yet, Erik was practically high on the sound. 

“Charles, what’s your opinion on clothes-”

_Off. Now._

Charles’ voice was clear and demanding in his head. Erik smirked. 

Charles unbuttoned Erik’s shirt as Erik tugged at his pants, forcefully enough that the hem of his boxers was tugged dangerously low. Neither of them moved to correct it. 

Once Erik’s shirt was gone, Charles couldn’t help but marvel at the lithe form standing before him. There was grace in every muscle, poise in his elegant posture. 

_Beautiful._

The thought tumbled from his mind before he could stop it, but Erik simply smiled softly in an unexpected show of vulnerability. 

_I mean it,_ Charles insisted, _you’re amazing._

“So are you,” Erik spoke, quickly regaining his composure. “I especially adore this right here.” He ran his rough fingers over the creamy-smooth skin inside Charles’ hip bone. Erik leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to the exposed skin. That was all it took for Charles to fumble clumsily around the buttons of his shirt in his hasty efforts to remove it. Once it was gone, thrown across the room to be quickly forgotten, Erik’s hands were all over him, strong and insatiable. 

Charles, being a rather short and petite man, had never really considered himself particularly attractive. But it was hard to argue with the way Erik adored him with touches and kisses and heavy breaths. It wasn’t long before he wanted to reciprocate, to run his hands across Erik’s legs and hear his restrained groans. Charles reveled in being able to elicit those sounds from him. Wordlessly, he moved his hands to Erik’s belt buckle, which caused him to break away from Charles for a moment to stare at him. He was undaunted, making quick work of the button and zipper. Erik wasn’t able to stop himself from letting out a low growl. Charles chuckled and smirked. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Erik asked, whispered, knowing he wouldn’t be able to control his voice well at a higher register. 

“Immensely,” Charles’ voice wavered slightly. Erik noticed and tilted his head to the side as he spoke. 

“Is that why you’ve been using telepathy?” 

_Maybe_. Charles admitted. 

“That’s alright, I like hearing you squirm.”

Charles took the opportunity to finally tug off Erik’s pants and moments later they were back in the thick of it, moaning, groaning, feeling, touching each other, breathing together. Erik delighted in watching Charles unravel, in breaking through his carefully constructed control, making his voice tremble, his hands shake, his thoughts tumble forth with unrestrained abandon. 

Charles enjoyed— no, loved— watching Erik lose composure. Every time he uttered a sound, Erik got a bit more unrestrained, more out of control. He pushed Erik to the edge until he couldn’t contain himself anymore. 

Later that night, out of breath and drained of energy, they lay beside one another in Charles’ bed. Erik’s breaths had returned to a steady rhythm, which fascinated Charles since his own were still heavy and slightly shaky. 

“Your breaths are uneven, what’s wrong?” Leave it to Erik to have both impeccable observation and absolutely no insight whatsoever. Charles turned his head to face him. 

“Nothing.”

Erik’s eyebrows furrowed, “Then why-” 

“You.” 

“Still?” Erik exclaimed in disbelief. Charles laughed. 

“What, did you honestly think that _that_ was going to make me _more_ controlled around you?” 

“Hmm,” he hummed. “I suppose not.” 

Charles closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing, to bring himself back to that stable, immaculate control he was used to. He felt strong arms wrap around him, pulling him closer. His touch was warm and comforting and Charles found his head resting easily in the crook of Erik’s neck. A few quiet minutes passed like this. 

“Erik?” Charles whispered, breaking the silence. 

“Hm?” 

“How are you so calm right now?”

Try as he might, Charles couldn’t quiet his mind. Erik’s skin felt amazing, electric against his own. He could practically feel the affection radiating off of him, even despite his best efforts to keep his powers under wraps. Images of himself and Erik churned over again and again in his mind, a mix of memories and feelings and fantasies for the future.

Erik’s eyes were closed, but he found Charles’ hand and led it to his chest, on the left side just above his heart, and held it there. Charles’ eyes flew open and his breath hitched as he felt Erik’s heart beat erratically under his fingertips. He sat up slightly to kiss Erik, gentle and soft, before returning to the crook of his neck. Even after Erik’s hand moved, Charles kept his there, finding the feeling, the beat, oddly comforting. 

As they fell asleep, Charles only had one regret— that he hadn’t taken his hands out of his pockets sooner. 


End file.
